This is the first installment of a series on the Great U.S. Culture War. Ugh. I know. Heads shake “No.” Eyes roll. And deep sighs follow the sound of those words – Great U.S. Culture War – if not the spit of a quick, short expletive. Sorry, but we, the “Good People of Virginia”, must understand that whether we like it or not, we are in a Culture War. The outcome of the Culture War seals the fate of our Commonwealth and Nation. And, sets the future for your family, your children and theirs and theirs..
For example, this series relates directly to the current fight over the proposed Virginia History and Social Sciences Standards of Learning. That controversy is part of the Great U.S. Culture War – right here in Virginia. Our “KulturKampf” is complicated in its details, yet starkly simple in summary. Let’s unravel it and put it back together.
Culture Commands
So, why and how does Culture “Command?”
First, the way “culture” is bandied about in popular culture and public education is trite at first glance and insidious upon further investigation. Culture is used as shorthand for “race.” That’s screwed up because the very notion of race creates invidious divisions based on the color of skin.
We can agree with the Left – who we’ll know in a few more paragraphs as Human Secularist Totalitarians – that race is a social construct. Race entered European languages as a distinction among peoples in the 1500s during the Age of Exploration. Race became codified in Virginia law in the 1600s as a distinction for lifelong, chattel slavery. Race was elevated as knowledge by social scientists in the 1800s. But, the professors were wrong.
There are thousands of genetic communities around the world. Describing the communities as “ethnicities” is imprecise, but many times better than “race.” In Africa, a Yoruba isn’t a Bantu. A Bantu isn’t a Berber or a Zulu. In Asia, Burmese isn’t Korean. Korean isn’t Vietnamese or Malay. Race doesn’t cut it as a way to group people.
Yes, the medical profession may group ethnic DNA differences into racial categories, but it is a very rough approximation. Think of grouping many ethnicities under a broad umbrella – our friend, the Normal Curve or Bell Curve, to make generalizations. Using race in biology and medicine is a blunt tool – and in bivariate analysis (comparing black and white) is useless. Bogus. Proves nothing. Correlation isn’t causation.
Culture isn’t a hairstyle called “cornrows.” Culture isn’t “Blackness” or “Whiteness.”
Culture is the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a social group. It includes characteristic features of everyday existence.
That means culture shares language, government, religion, customs, traditions, norms, folklore, legends, and myths.
It’s common concepts of education, training, technology, commerce, work, and war. It’s like expressions in music, dance, and art.
It’s easy to make a list of at least 25 observable, measurable, and repeatable aspects of Culture.
This understanding of Culture “Commands” because, in the history of the world, every society from the tiniest tribe to greatest civilization has had only one culture at a time. Just one. There have been multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, pluralistic societies. But, there’s never been a “multi-cultural” society.
“Multiculturalism” is a myth propagated purposefully to deny that America is the great melting pot where everyone is assimilated into our exceptional American branch of Western Civilization.
Worldviews
Culture is based on worldview. Worldview comes to us from the German concept “Weltanschauung.” It works well. Social scientists can argue that worldview creates culture instead of culture creating worldview. Let’s save that debate for sherry hour in the faculty lounge. Culture and worldview form an inseparable unity.
There were four distinct cultures in Colonial America. They united after the Revolution into a consensus American Culture. They remained distinct sub-cultures and evolved through time. They are recognizable today.
The four founding sub-cultures are:
- Tidewater
- New England
- Middle Atlantic
- Frontier (Appalachia)
These historical, regional sub-cultures are relevant today because a majority of people in two sub-cultures – New England and Middle Atlantic – abandoned the consensus American culture. For the most part, these two sub-cultures, and everywhere they have transplanted themselves across the country, adopted the worldview and ideas evolved from the French Revolution. Two newer sub-cultures, Urban Jewish and Urban Black (African Ethnicities), vote with the Human Secularist Totalitarians – even if they don’t share their worldview precisely.
The ideas of the French Revolution are “Human Secularist Totalitarianism.”
That’s a big deal, because the French Revolution quickly led to The Terror. And, the killing didn’t stop with the guillotine.
Human Secularist Totalitarianism is the root and trunk of an ideological tree. This evil tree has spawned terrible seeds in Socialism, Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism. Those “isms” murdered more millions of people in the 20th Century than anyone else in the entire history of humanity.
The bad seeds of Human Secularist Totalitarianism sprouted even more disastrously wrong ideas and policies in (modern) Liberalism , Progressivism, Cultural Marxism, Climate Cultism, and Critical Race Theory.
Consequently, the Great U.S. Culture War is the conflict between the traditional, Biblical worldview and former consensus culture of American Exceptionalism against the antagonistic Human Secularist Totalitarianism worldview
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I learned a lot about these subcultures when I read the book “Albion’s Seed” by David H. Fischer. If you haven’t read it, please do, for it is marvelous. (apologies to all teachers for putting the book in quotation marks, but there’s not bold or underline or italics to show that this is a book.)
Albion’s Seed is a source for much of this material. There’s another book along the same line that discusses 11 nations across North America.
The grammar police will not cite you for the quotes.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
James Atticus Bowden